After the Christinas recess, the first important measure of parliament related to Ireland. Addresses from America had been sent to the people of that country, and they soon produced their intended effects among them; especially among the people of Dublin, and the Protestant dissenters. This was first seen in the acts of the sheriffs and common-council of that city. After voting thanks to Lord Howard, on his resignation, and to those peers who had supported the constitution, and, in opposition to a weak and wicked administration, protested against the American restraining acts in imitation of the city of London, they sent over a strong petition and remonstrance to the king. This was opposed by the lord mayor and aldermen, and the common-council then resolved that whoever refused to consent to a dutiful petition, tending to undeceive the king, and by which the effusion of one drop of blood of the subjects of Great Britain might be prevented, was an enemy to the constitution. The Irish parliament was not behindhand with the common-council in exhibiting sympathy for the cause of the Americans. Soon after it assembled, which was on the 10th of October, the members rejected a money-bill transmitted from England, upon the plea that it had been altered in council. On the 23rd of November, still more unequivocal symptoms of a refractory spirit appeared in the Irish parliament. Lord Harcourt, the lord-lieutenant, having proposed to the commons to send out of the kingdom 4000 men, for the American service, and accept in their stead an equal number of foreign Protestant troops, to be maintained at the expense of the British crown, they reluctantly conceded to the first proposition, and absolutely refused to admit the foreign substitutes.
These embarrassing matters were brought before the English parliament. On the 15th of February, Mr. Thomas Townshend moved for a committee of inquiry, on the allegation that the lord-lieutenant had made an offer of the public money without consulting the British house of commons, and had thereby been guilty of a breach of privilege. Ministers were in a dilemma. Taken by surprise no two of them agreed in their modes of defence, or took the same ground in warding off the attack. Thus while one asserted that the Irish speaker had misunderstood the viceroy’s message, which only meant that his majesty would pay the 4000 foreigners, another contended that when the Irish establishment was increased, the king had engaged to pay 12,000 troops in that country, except in case of invasion or rebellion in England, and that the present demand not being within these exceptions, his majesty should, therefore, be absolved from his promise. But whatever ground ministers took it was clear that they or the viceroy of Ireland had been at fault, and had not Lord Harcourt been popular both with “the king’s friends” and the opposition, it is probable that he would have been censured by the house. The motion was, however, quashed by a large majority, and another motion on the same subject was equally unavailing.
DEBATES ON AMERICA, ETC.
On the 20th of February, Mr. Fox made a motion for a committee to inquire into the causes of the ill-success of our arms in North America, and the defection of the Canadians. In a speech of considerable power, Fox maintained that the ultimate design of government was to overthrow the constitution. He chiefly confined himself to an inquiry whether the proceedings of ministers had produced the desired effects. To this end he pursued a detail of ministerial operations beginning with the Boston Port Bill, in the course of which he endeavoured to show that folly existed in the cabinet, and that their plans were conceived in ignorance and executed in imbecility. At the same time he inveighed against the disgraceful servility of parliament, and concluded by remarking that none would object to inquiry but those who were culpable themselves. Unable to resist his reasoning, ministers attempted to elude it, but their arguments rather weakened than strengthened their cause. Lord North, indeed, candidly admitted that some of his plans had miscarried; arguing, in extenuation of their failure, that it was impossible to foresee every event. He concluded by saying that he was ready to resign, whenever the house should withdraw its confidence. There was no danger, however, of this extremity; for, though excited by the speech of the mover, several friends of government joined in calling for an inquiry, the motion was negatived by a majority of two hundred and forty against one hundred and four.
On the 29th of February, copies of treaties lately-entered into with the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, the Duke of Brunswick, and the Hereditary Prince of Hesse Darmstadt, for the hire of troops, to the amount of about 17,000 men, for the American service, were laid before the house of commons. Lord North moved to refer these compacts to a committee; on doing which he dilated on the fairness of the terms, and dwelt on the advantages of employing foreign troops. By the opposition, however, Great Britain was represented as disgraced in the sight of all Europe, by applying to the petty states of Germany for succours against her own subjects. They complained also, that the troops had been obtained at an immoderately high price; £7 10s. levy-money being paid for every man. The princes, likewise, it was said, who let them out like slaves, or beasts of draught, were to be subsidised besides; the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, who furnished 13,000 men, being guaranteed £10,281 per annum, and the Hereditary Prince of Hesse, who furnished 688 men, £6000 annually. Moreover, it was objected that the King of England had ensured the dominions of these princes against foreign attacks, while their troops were employed in America. Finally, the opposition argued that it was injudicious and dangerous to hire men who had nothing to do with the quarrel in question. Lord Irnham, in opposing ministers, made a good use of the weapons of ridicule. He remarked:—“I shall say little as to the feelings of those princes who can sell their subjects for such purposes. We have read of the humourist Sancho’s wish,—‘that, if he were a prince, all his subjects should be blackamoors, as he could, by the sale of them, easily turn them into ready money;’ but that wish, however it may appear ridiculous and unbecoming a sovereign, is much more innocent than a prince’s availing himself of his vassals for the purpose of sacrificing them in such destructive war, where he has the additional crime of making them destroy much better and nobler beings than themselves.” Other members maintained that these German soldiers, on arriving in America, would be induced to accept lands from the colonists, join the banner of independence, and fight against the monarch who purchased their services. But argument was of no avail: the question for referring the treaties to a committee was carried by two hundred and forty-two to eighty-eight, and subsequently for agreeing to the report by one hundred and twenty to forty-eight. One amendment was carried on the motion of Colonel Barrè, namely, for an address to his majesty to equip the German troops with British manufactures.
In the house of lords the whole strength of the opposition was arrayed against the treaties. The Duke of Richmond moved an address not only to countermand all foreign troops, but to forego hostilities. His grace observed, in his speech, that ever since the year 1702, the German princes had been rising in their demands; that the present bargain was harder than any former one; and that the cost of the mercenaries engaged would not be less than one million and a half annually. He then animadverted on the large proportion of officers employed, and pointed out the danger of keeping so many foreigners under their own generals. He took occasion, also, to speak again of the unseen, overruling influence which had for so many years pervaded all our councils, though it was manifest to all that this influence proceeded from the king himself. After a long and animated speech, the Duke of Richmond was followed by other noble lords who enforced his sentiments. It was stated that neither Marlborough’s campaign of 1704, which saved the German empire, nor the campaign by which the Earl of Chatham had obtained Canada, had cost so much money as that of Boston during the last year. It was also urged that the nation was incapable of bearing new taxes or of supporting the war in America; and that, if to the American war were added a rupture with France and Spain, and the whole house of Bourbon, the ruin of England was inevitable. The population of America was likewise pompously displayed, and the termination of all connexion between England and her colonies predicted. On their part ministers supported their measures by tracing the history of the colonies, and exhibiting their uniform disposition to factious resistance. Lord Temple, who had again differed with his brother-in-law the Earl of Chatham, strongly reprobated the intemperance of the opposition. He remarked:—“The next easterly wind will convey to America every expression used in this debate; and I would not that the nakedness and weakness of my country should stand confirmed by the sanction and authority of such testimony. It is time to act, and not to talk; for the die is cast, the sword is drawn, and the scabbard thrown away. Past experience certainly will not justify confidence in ministers; but I would not, by declaring our utter inability to reduce the colonists, furnish a golden bridge for an ignominious, ruinous, and disgraceful peace. I have heard the war called unjust: but who in this house have a right to call it so? Not those who voted for the Declaratory Act: those only who denied our right of taxation; and how very few were they! I cannot approve of recalling troops, and publishing the terms to which you will yield, until there is reasonable assurance of their not being rejected. When the happy moment for conciliation shall arrive, I hope ministers will seize it: I wish them success: at least at such a crisis I will not hang on the wheels of government, rendering that which already is but too difficult more impracticable.” Upon a division, the Duke of Richmond’s motion was negatived by one hundred to thirty-two; but the proposed address was entered on the journals, with the names of ten peers protesting against its rejection.
Despite this “vast and invincible majority,” as it was called by Burke, on the 14th of March the Duke of Grafton moved for an address beseeching his majesty that a proclamation might be issued, declaring that if the revolted colonies, within a reasonable time, before or after the arrival of the troops in America, should present a petition to the commander-in-chief, or to the commissioners appointed under the late act, setting forth what they considered to be their just rights and real grievances, hostilities should be suspended, and the said petition be referred to parliament for consideration. In making this motion, the Duke of Grafton asserted that both France and Spain were arming, and that two French gentlemen had already been to America, and had had conferences with Washington and with congress. These assertions, however, were treated by ministers as chimerical, and Lord Weymouth, secretary for foreign affairs, assured the house that there never was a time when Great Britain had less to fear from foreign powers, and that every courier brought assurances of the pacific intentions and friendly feelings from all the courts of Europe. After a long debate, in which old arguments were reiterated on both sides of the house, the duke’s motion was negatived, by a majority of ninety-one against thirty-one. About a fortnight after this Mr. Hartley presented the form of another address in the commons, which was conceived in a better spirit, but it shared the same fate as that of the Duke of Grafton. On the 10th of May Mr. Sawbridge, who had succeeded Wilkes as lord mayor, made a similar motion, for placing the Americans in the same situation as the Irish.
During the debates on this motion, Mr. Temple Luttrel, a younger brother of the colonel, uttered very violent language; declaring that the king’s speech was a sanguinary parole, and the ministry an infernal administration: quoting the well-known observation of the philosopher Thales; “that of all wild beasts, the worst was a tyrant, and of all tame ones, a flatterer.” The motion was negatived, as was also a motion subsequently made by General Conway, for inspecting the powers vested in his majesty’s commissioners proceeding to America.